Getting a link from Reddit or dugged by Digg is the stuff of many a blogger's or webmaster's dream. These social news sites have the power to deliver a torrent of traffic to anyone who creates content good enough to be liked and linked by users.

The post features a genuine (and rather abusive) e-mail from a customer and my almost-straight-laced but definitely helpful response.

Someone added a link to the post on Reddit and over the next few days the sex toys blog experienced a big spike in traffic. Hurrah! Lots more people finding out about Lovehoney! Reading our blog! Looking at our sex toys! Buying our sex toys!

At least, that's the theory.

But a quick probe into our Analytics a couple of days after the spike provides some sobering evidence of the Reddit Effect and should give Webmasters cause to question the value of focusing efforts on (and stressing over) obtaining links from Reddit or Digg.

The e-mail address [e-mail address removed] is on our mailing list because a person used it to ask for a free condom on 11 May 2006. That's a long time ago, so maybe you forgot the two were connected.

Our mailing list is a double-opt-in system which means the owner of the e-mail address has to click on a link in an e-mail we send to prove that they own the e-mail address and to confirm that they want to join the mailing list and receive the free item.

The owner of [e-mail address removed] clicked the double opt-in link.

Every e-mail we send to our mailing list has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. I have clicked this for you to remove your address from the list.

We are sorry if you received e-mail that you think you didn't ask for and understand that it is annoying, which is why we are so careful to run a double opt-in list.

Do let me know if you have any more questions about our fucking list and I'll be happy to help when I've stopped sucking cock.

The world's first sex toy recycling scheme, Lovehoney's Rabbit Amnesty, has been running for more than six months now and it's going stronger than ever.

Your tremendous recycling efforts have ensured that we've been able to contribute to the success and development of the World Land Trust's Carbon Balanced programme, which is recognised as hugely important by its patron, Sir David Attenborough: "I welcome World Land Trust's new Carbon-balancing programme as a way of helping put back what we are taking away... Balancing your carbon emissions with the WLT means that we are able to put even more back in to our key objectives – acquiring land for conservation."

Lovehoney's offset has been allocated to the Sierra Gorda project in Mexico, which is a broad-based conservation programme with a strong social element.

Not only does the project help conserve the area's complex ecosystem, it provides incentives to local small-holders who receive financial incentives for environmental services – essentially planting up plots to help stabilise slopes and watersheds on over-grazed and eroding pastures.

If, like us, you're at work all day long, you probably don't often get the chance to catch The Alan Titchmarsh Show on ITV on weekday afternoons. That's a real shame because Alan has taken it upon himself to explore the exciting world of sex toys.

With resident sex expert Julie Peasgood, Alan has tackled sex games, saucy gifts, erogenous zones, sexercise and saucy gifts. In one memorable episode, he even discussed olive oil and breasts - and all before teatime.

Lovehoney is happy to keep Alan and Julie (and house hunk Tommy) supplied with a fun variety of sex toys and naughty games. If you've seen something on the show that you like the look of, you can see it on our special Alan Titchmarsh sex toys page.

And if you've never seen The Titcher tickling someone with a feather duster, head over to the Alan Titchmarsh TV Show Web site without further ado. (But don't forget to come back and buy something.)

The Lovehoney Sex Tips Giveaway is back by popular demand. Once again we've got £1,000 of sex toys, sex furniture, lubricants, books and erotic gifts to give away to the people who share their best sex tips with us.

Have you got some red-hot advice for going giving a blow job or going down on a girl? Or perhaps you've got some erotic advice involving various items of fruit, chocolate and Champagne?

Share your tip with us and the best ones will win a prize from our £1,000 sex toy selection! You can enter as many times as you like.

In the finest Reithian tradition, the bastion of public service broadcasting that is Nuts TV recently delivered a demonstration of everyone's favourite music activated sex toy, the iBuzz Two Vibrator.

Describing the iBuzz as 'teledildonics – sex toys controlled by computers,' the demonstrator gamely attempts to explain the features of this revolutionary sex toy backed by We Are The Cheeky Girls, while the gurning presenters goon around in standard Nuts TV fashion.

I think the manufacturer's video provided didn't do the product justice. I'm not particularly creative and I have already come up with about five possible positions they didn't showcase (seriously, each pair of supports can hold 350 lbs - the fact that they didn't hoist the man up in the air more often was just a waste).

Unfortunately, it's a bit out of my price range at least until I decide to treat myself grand style, so if any of you are lucky enough to get one, please let me know how it works out. I want to know how high up on my wish list to put it...